Vegetarian Diet

"Sound mind in a sound body" is a well-known aphorism. One has therefore to work for these before anything else. We have to keep both body and mind in a healthy condition before these can be used as instruments for spiritual advancement. For this, we have of necessity to resort to food. We cannot do without food for keeping the body and soul together. Our first and foremost problem then is food, for food conditions body as well as mind. Right type of food, rightly earned, rightly taken helps a lot in this direction.

 

Sant Kirpal Singh

 

Our diet should not contract for us unnecessary Karmic debts

Diet naturally plays a major role in the problem of life. We need food for the upkeep of our physical being. We are compelled by nature to exist in this world so long as our allotted span of life is determined by destiny, or karmas do not run out. For our very existence we have to subsist on one thing or another. Man is quite helpless in this respect. The law of Karma is nature's unseen method of keeping the world in its iron grip, so as to keep it peopled and going. It, therefore, becomes all the more necessary that man should guard against contracting eating habits thoughtlessly, heedlessly, and indiscriminately. As we cannot do without food, we must select at least such articles of diet as may prove the least harmful in our spiritual pursuit. Our diet should not contract for us unnecessary Karmic debts which it may be possible to avoid by a little care. With this end in view, let us study nature.

Man's diet comes mainly from earth, i.e. land, air and water. We also see that life exists in all that is moving and static. The moving creatures live upon each other, as well as on static creation - to wit, vegetables, plants, shrubs, herbs, trees and the like. Man, however, makes friends with and loves creatures (birds and animals) as live upon the life in nature and makes them his pets. The ancients knew well that man, bird, and animal were all bound up with the same Karmic bond. Man with the thought of common brotherhood worked hard both for himself and for his pets. He tilled the land, grew fruits, and produced food both for himself, his bird friends, and his kine and oxen. But in course of time, he grew ease-loving, with the result that be first preyed upon the animals' milk and then upon their flesh as well.

Do not kill

According to the moral, social, and spiritual codes of conduct, one must not interfere with the lives of any animal in God's creation. In India, this standard of living is enunciated as Ahimsa or non-injury to all living creatures. This led to the vegetarian diet as contradistinguished from the non-vegetarian diet.

Sant Kirpal Singh

 

To kill animals or to feed one's pets with meat, brings in a drastic karmic reaction and will make it impossible that one can rise within.

 


Q. Is Sat­vic food diet as stressed in the ‘Crown of Life’ best for my devel­op­ment? I am try­ing this out.

Sant Kirpal Singh: The Sat­vic diet pre­scribed in Crown of Life is help­ful for your spir­i­tual devel­op­ment. You will find the results in due course. Please note that mod­er­a­tion should always be main­tained for hav­ing steady progress and sound phys­i­cal health.

 

Circular letter by Sant Kirpal Singh issued in July 1958

Everyone seeks rest and peace, but they remain as elusive as ever. All our efforts in this direction come to naught and prove fruitless. Why? Because we work on the wrong lines. Man lives on two planes, the outer and the inner. First, we have to settle things outside to bring peace on the outer plane before we can enter within.

 

From the book "Wheel of life", written by Sant Kirpal Singh

Diet naturally plays a major role in the problem of life. We need food for the upkeep of our physical being. We are compelled by nature to exist in this world as long as our allotted span of life is determined by destiny, or karmas do not run out.

 

 From the book "Morning Talks", written by Sant Kirpal Singh
1967-10-19, Delhi, Sawan Ashram


A natural diet consists of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and permitted dairy products. Animal foods such as meat, fish, fowl, eggs or their bye products, and spices and intoxicants should be strictly avoided. A strict vegetarian diet is what is wanted.

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